The Grey Ones

JUNIPER

Never in her life had she received such an important mission. Lady Juniper was often overlooked in matters of diplomacy, despite her attentiveness and hard work. That responsibility was often placed upon her brother; although young and brash, Lord Sebastian was to be the next ruler of the city, after all.

Now, however, the future of the city seemed to lie on Juniper’s shoulders. She was to teach the foreigners the way of the continent, but these weren’t just any foreigners. These were the Kas, the Grey Ones, the Demons of the North, and she was to be taught of their ways as well. Despite having heard quite the tales about them, Garret had told her that they were stern and militaristic. Their belief was grounded in respect and obedience, the advisor had told her, but neither he nor Juniper knew the details of their philosophy.

She was gravely curious. There was, of course, a tangible element of fear, as well; she, like any other Edredian, had grown up listening to the terrible stories about the Grey Ones—how they moved through the shadows, and how they kidnapped the children from their beds and feasted on their flesh. Juniper knew, naturally, that they were only tales told to frighten women and children, but they were frightening, nonetheless. She would try to be open-minded, but her heart raced at the thought of meeting them.

Frightened or nor—Juniper would not neglect such an important task. Wanting to properly represent her own culture, she wore her finest robes and her most elegant gold jewellery. Red and gold, those were the colours of Noxborough, and she was wearing them proudly.

She was escorted by carriage to the harbour where she was led to the Kas encampment by four City Guards. She was nervous and frightened, but also excited and interested. As she stood in front of the gates of the Winter Fort, guarded by two of the foreigners, she felt awestruck by the size of the men with grey skin and golden eyes. They, on the other hand, did not seem very impressed by the human visitors.

She and her guards were let inside, where more of the grey-skinned beasts were housed. There were some other humans there as well, but they were all wearing strange clothing, face paint, ink, and hairdressings—clearly, they were converters, and they didn’t seem very impressed by the noble lady and her guards.

She was escorted to a large tent deep within the courtyard. The City Guards surrounding her were all clasping at their sword-hilts, and she could see gleams of sweat on their brows in the sunlight. By the tent, a smaller and slenderer Grey One, dressed in a long, crimson robe, met them with a deep bow.

“Vahanan, ohkas-enaan,” said the Grey One, his voice dark but pleasant, and smooth like velvet. “Welcome, stranger of importance.” He straightened and looked at Juniper, and there was, surprisingly enough, a great deal of humanity in his features and countenance, despite not being human at all. “I am Kasethen, the advisor of the Vasaath.”

Juniper curtsied. “A pleasure to meet you, Kasethen. I am Lady Juniper of House Arlington, daughter of Lord Richmond of House Arlington, Duke of Noxborough.”

Kasethen smiled and bowed again. “This way, my lady. The Vasaath is waiting to receive you.”

He opened heavy curtains that led into the vast tent, and Juniper swallowed deeply before she entered, closely followed by her guards.

The tent was spacious and strangely silent. Through the thick, crimson fabric, she could barely hear the screaming seagulls or the furious ocean. Thick rugs covered the dirt floor, and thick veils parted the tent into rooms in the back. The air was filled with foreign spices, pleasant to the senses. In the middle of the large open space, stood a low, wooden table, and further down from it, on a slightly raised podium, stood a large bench that looked like driftwood. On it sat a man, a Grey One, built like a titan, with striking features and burning golden eyes.

Juniper had to grab hold of one of her guards’ arms, lest she stumbled backwards. The grey man on the bench looked powerful and menacing, but regal and unobtainable. His strong face was unreadable, but his gaze was direct and demanding.

Black hair coiled in a thick braid over the top of his head and over one of his muscled shoulders, reaching down to his waist. Black leather shielded his broad shoulders, but his chest was bare save for the leather harness. Black ink crawled like vines over his shape; strange markings and sharp symbols stretched over his ash grey skin, unlike anything she had ever seen before. His massive hands rested on his knees and extended into clawed fingertips blackened by soot.

Juniper had never seen such a man in her entire life. There was less humanity in this man’s face than in Kasethen’s, but there was a magnificence to it she had rarely seen before; frightening, judgmental, but striking. She was fascinated and horrified, and for a moment, she couldn’t even move.

Neither did he, the Vasaath. His eyes seared into hers, and she was eventually forced to divert her gaze as she curtsied as deeply and graciously as she could before carefully returning her eyes to the general.

Kasethen had entered the tent and swiftly joined the Vasaath. He said something in their foreign tongue to the great man on the bench before backing away, but Juniper had at least recognised her own name being said.

The general tilted his head ever so slightly. “Vahanan, oh ma-kas. I receive you, stranger.” His voice was deep and dark, and not at all as friendly as Kasethen’s—but pleasant, nonetheless. He then motioned his large hand at her, inviting her to come closer.

She felt her heart race. Every grain in her body told her to run as fast as her legs would allow lest the grey beasts snatched her away in the shadows, but she obliged the Warlord and cautiously walked closer.

“You are here to learn the Kasenon, the Philosophy of the People,” said the Vasaath.

Juniper nodded. “Yes, my lord. It will be my honour to learn of your ways.”

“Yes,” said he and nonchalantly inspected the City Guards inside his tent, “you should feel honoured. When you are ready, you will come to see the truth in our ways. Vas-an lit basran.”

She listened to the foreign words, tasted them on her tongue, and was intrigued. “My lord, what does that mean?”

The Vasaath settled his gaze upon her once again and said, with a hard and final tone, “‘Order through submission’. That is your first lesson.”

Those words, she understood—but she had to admit that the foreign words had been more pleasant when she had not understood the meaning behind them. Now, when she did, coldness spread through her body and into her very core. Order through submission. The phrase was as terrifying as it was final, but she curtsied again.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said. “I shall remember it.”

“You shall learn it,” the Vasaath said. Then, he rose from his bench and revealed his full height.

Juniper gasped as she backed straight into one of the guards.

The general was a giant—proportionate and imposing. Studded leather straps fell from the thick belt at his waist and shielded his long legs. The full texture of his muscled torso was revealed as he stood, and the black ink was displayed like a work of art.

He stepped down from the small podium and stood only a few feet away from Juniper as he looked down on her. She tried to seem composed, but she pressed herself closer to the guard behind her.

The Vasaath growled something in his language, and Kasethen then said, “The Vasaath wishes to speak with the lady in private. I must ask the guards to come with me.”

The four men hesitated, but Juniper nodded, and the men disappeared reluctantly from the tent together with Kasethen. Suddenly alone with the giant, Juniper felt strangely small and defenceless. She closed her hands on her chest, swallowed hard, and waited for the Warlord to speak.

He turned from her and moved to the lowered table. He folded his long legs underneath his body and sat. Stretching out an arm to the seat next to him, he invited her.

She hesitated and felt her cheeks redden before she cleared her throat and joined him. “I find the fragrance in here very pleasant. It seems like spices, although I’m afraid I don’t know which ones.”

The Vasaath gave a decided nod. “It is Redroot from Kasarath you’re scenting. I have it for tea every morning.”

She smiled swiftly. “It smells wonderful.” She was raised right and was talented in politeness and small-talk, like any lady. “I remember my first taste of spices. I was only a child then, but we had just received a shipment from the Illyrian Empire; greenleaf, appleberries, rosewater—”

“Bas, ohkas!” the Vasaath suddenly exclaimed. “Enough!”

Juniper silenced at once and dropped her gaze.

“I am not interested in sentimental drabble,” said he. “Tell me, do you worship? And look at me when I speak to you.”

She was suddenly confused but gazed up immediately. Was he expecting a theological discussion? She shrugged. “I suppose so. I worship just like any other Edredian.”

“That was not my question.” His golden eyes burned.

Juniper pondered for a moment, before she asked, “My lord, do you wish to know if I believe?”

The Vasaath nodded with an approving grunt.

This was indeed a serious question; Juniper knew not what to answer.

She thought about it for a moment longer before finally saying, “It would be foolish of me—of anyone, even though many people do—to blindly trust in the scriptures of the Builder. Not even Edred himself followed them, but does that mean I do not believe?” She wondered for a moment more, her brows knitting in the process. “I would rather claim that I am—” She let her eyes trace the textures of the ceiling of the tent while searching for the right words. “Cautiously positive that there is a higher power we cannot comprehend. Some call it the Builder, and others call it something else.”

The Vasaath furrowed his strong brows. “But do you not agree that it is irresponsible to put your faith in the hands of a power you believe to be too immense to even comprehend?”

Juniper smiled softly. “Perhaps. But it’s also comforting to believe there is something out there watching over us, protecting us from evil and despair.”

“Yet there is plenty of evil and despair in this world.” The Vasaath’s words were cold and heavy.

“Indeed,” said she, “but that does not change, no matter our beliefs.”

The general lifted his chin and looked down his nose. “The Kasenon teaches us that the state of the world is our responsibility, and that we must accept our nature and restrain it. Evil exists because we are inherently evil. Despair exists because we are inherently despairing. Those features exist in every living thing and will be expressed unless we restrain them in ourselves. We are but our own protectors.”

His eyes suddenly darkened, and Juniper swallowed nervously.

“You, however,” he rumbled, “with your delusions of a deity, put that responsibility on that deity to rid yourself from it. You believe evil exists as a menace, as something that was born in the shadow of your Builder, as something you need protection from. Not as something you control.”

She clasped her jaw together. She had never seen herself as a firm devotee of the Vault and the Pillars, of the Builder, but the way he spoke about the very idea of a deity was cold and harsh. She tried to find something diplomatic to say, to sort her words out.

“It must be exhausting to put so much on your shoulders,” she then said. “We are but people, after all. Flawed and chaotic. I believe that is inherent in us all, and we would collapse if we were to blame ourselves for what we cannot change. Besides, to believe that there is a deity that tells us that we are all created equal is rather comforting at times even if it’s not always so in our world.”

He seemed to ponder for a moment, his brows pressed tightly together; a vertical line had formed on his forehead, and he gracefully leaned his elbow onto the table. “What is your age, ohkas?”

Juniper shifted slightly. Had she said something inappropriate? “I am two and twenty, my lord.”

“You speak with stark certainty, despite your modest age,” said the general. His voice hadn’t changed, but his words echoed with impress. “I did not expect that.”

She felt her cheeks flush again and she looked down. “My lord, why are you interested in whether or not I believe in the Builder?”

“I need to understand your standpoint,” said he, “your basic code of conduct. Your exterior shows only half the truth—I need your thoughts.”

“And what is your verdict?” She tried to read his face, but it was stern and cold.

He leaned back and examined her meticulously. Juniper felt flushed by the burning scrutiny.

When he finally spoke, she truly felt judged. “Your family sigil, the Osprey, is a powerful and hardworking bird, but you seem to relish in your lavish life. You have never worked a day in your life, have you? You live a life of plenty, silk and gold, while many of your people are starving on the streets. There is a rift, but you don’t care. This is, as I understand, contradictory to your faith which claims that every living soul is equal in the eyes of the Builder.”

She suddenly felt awfully aware of the heavy gold adorning her neck.

“Of course,” he then said, “you might not be the one to blame for such greed—I am sure you’ve had nothing to worry about through your childhood years. It’s easy to believe that everyone is created equal when you have everything and don’t have to acknowledge the misery your social structure causes.”

She started feeling quite faint. She took a ragged breath. “Why do you say such things?”

“I only wish to understand why your people persist in putting your faith in something as unfathomable as the Builder instead of something as concrete as the Kasenon.”

Juniper sighed, slightly angered by his assault. “My lord, why do you persist in proving yourself right instead of respecting that we have different views of the world? I was under the impression that that was an important tenet in your philosophy? Respect?”

His golden eyes narrowed, his body stiffened. A guttural growl escaped him as he said, his voice thunderous, “Do not speak of what you cannot understand. You do not know the weight of respect through the Kasenon, ohkas oh ma-aamon.”

She couldn’t understand his words, but she felt the burning resentment in his voice. She prepared herself to run, to flee, and yet she couldn’t move. Her heart was hammering in her chest, she could barely breathe, and her head was screaming at her to get away—at least from his reach—but she remained seated, frozen in place.

But the Vasaath only waved his hand dismissingly at her with a disgusted frown and muttered, “Bas, parthanan. Get out of my sight.”

She was bewildered and confused, but she did not need to hear it twice. At his command, her body awoke, and she scurried to her feet and left the tent as quickly as she could. She cared not about the ones standing outside the tent, and had it not been for Kasethen, she would have rushed out of that encampment without even looking back.

“Ohkas-enaan! My lady!” He bowed. “I take it your lesson with the Vasaath is over for today?”

Juniper had to halt, and as she did, she felt her head spin. Her guards were immediately by her side and let her lean into one of them. “I’m afraid…” she started, but her voice faltered. She had failed. Was this a declaration of war? Was this what would make the Free City of Noxborough fall under the rule of the Kas? She swallowed. “I’m afraid I won’t be coming back for another lesson, Kasethen.”

He seemed shocked. “I… I do not understand.”

“Your Vasaath seems displeased with me.” As the words escaped her mouth, the guards seemed to tense and move closer to protect their lady.

Kasethen’s face fell, and he bowed. “I am sorry, my lady. Please, allow me to have a word with him. Return tomorrow, ohkas-enaan, at noon, and I assure you he will appear much kinder.”

She hesitated and glanced at the crimson canvas. She wasn’t certain that grey man had it in him to be kind. Reluctantly, she nodded. “Very well.” She curtsied and then begged her guards to escort her out of the encampment, and they left in haste. Her legs were trembling, and her heart was still pounding. A shiver crawled along her spine as she wondered if the Warlord had been offended enough to launch his terrible invasion while the city was sleeping soundly in the Builder’s grace.

Translation:

Bas – enough; stop; “no more”

Ohkas – (oh ma-kas); stranger; “not of Kas”; “not of the people”

Ohkas-enaan – foreigner of importance; “not of Kas but of great importance”

Ohkas oh ma-aamon – dishonourable stranger; “unworthy of the will of the people”

Vas-an lit basran – “order through submission”